HOW MANY INNOCENT PEOPLE WILL BE MURDERED BY BLACKS TODAY?..........THE LOOTING ACROSS AMERICA is as black as the staggering murder and crime rates of BLACKS ACROSS AMERICA. Black Lives Matter? NO LIFE MATTERS TO BLACKS!

Saturday, March 23, 2019

PEW - AMERICA IN RAPID DECLINE - OVERRUN BY ILLEGALS, PLUNDERED BY THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS AND SOLD OUT BY CORRUPT POLITICIANS

"American elites continue focusing on a
global order while ignoring the decline of the United States. A broken America
will be unable to meet any geopolitical threats abroad. Any national security
strategy that does not begin with securing our own national security at home
will be doomed to fail." DANIEL GREENFIELD

*

Knowing that the wall
will become a reality if the President gets the cash brings out the
cheap-labor-express, wealthy power brokers like the Billionaires for Open Borders: Michael Bloomberg;
Rupert Murdoch; other distinguished members of the Forbes 500; and, as Lou
Dobbs often reminds us, the
"globalists, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Koch brothers and Wall
Street."

*

“Our
entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become
a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen
McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com

Looking to the Future, Public Sees an
America in Decline on Many Fronts

When Americans peer 30 years into the future, they see a country
in decline economically, politically and on the world stage. While a narrow
majority of the public (56%) say they are at least somewhat optimistic about
America’s future, hope gives way to doubt when the focus turns to specific issues.

A new Pew Research Center survey
focused on what Americans think the United States will be like in 2050 finds
that majorities of Americans foresee a country with a burgeoning national debt,
a wider gap between the rich and the poor and a workforce threatened by
automation.

Majorities predict that the economy
will be weaker, health care will be less affordable, the condition of the
environment will be worse and older Americans will have a harder time making
ends meet than they do now. Also predicted: a terrorist attack as bad as or
worse than 9/11 sometime over the next 30 years.

These
grim predictions mirror, in part, the public’s sour mood about the current stateof the
country. The share of Americans who are dissatisfied with the way things are
going in the country – seven-in-ten in January of 2019 – is higher now than at
any time in the past year.

The view of the U.S. in 2050 that the
public sees in its crystal ball includes major changes in the country’s
political leadership. Nearly nine-in-ten predict that a woman will be elected
president, and roughly two-thirds (65%) say the same about a Hispanic person.
And, on a decidedly optimistic note, more than half expect a cure for
Alzheimer’s disease by 2050.

The public also has a somewhat more positive view – or at least a
more benign one – of some current demographic trends that will shape the
country’s future. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that, by 2050, blacks,
Hispanics, Asians and other minorities will constitute a majority of the
population. About four-in-ten Americans (42%) say this shift will be neither
good nor bad for the country while 35% believe a majority-minority population
will be a good thing, and 23% say it will be bad.

These views differ significantly by
race and ethnicity. Whites are about twice as likely as blacks or Hispanics to
view this change negatively (28% of whites vs. 13% of blacks and 12% of
Hispanics). And, when asked about the consequences of an increasingly diverse
America, nearly half of whites (46%) but only a quarter of Hispanics and 18% of
blacks say a majority-minority country would weaken American customs and
values.

The
public views another projected change in the demographic contours of America
more ominously. By 2050, people ages 65 and older are predicted to outnumber those
younger than 18, a change that a 56% majority of all adults say will be bad for
the country.

In the face of these problems and
threats, the majority of Americans have little confidence that the federal
government and their elected officials are up to meeting the major challenges
that lie ahead. More than eight-in-ten say they are worried about the way the
government in Washington works, including 49% who are very worried. A similar
share worries about the ability of political leaders to solve the nation’s
biggest problems, with 48% saying they are very worried about this. And, when
asked what impact the federal government will have on finding solutions to the
country’s future problems, more say Washington will have a negative impact than
a positive one (55% vs. 44%).

Instead, large majorities of Americans
look to science and technology as well as to the education system to solve
future problems: 87% say science and technology will have a very or somewhat
positive impact in solving the nation’s problems, and roughly three-quarters
say the same about public K-12 schools (77%) and colleges and universities
(74%). Even so, roughly three-quarters (77%) worry about the ability of public
schools to provide a quality education to tomorrow’s students, and more expect
the quality of these schools to get worse, not better, by 2050. And only about
a third (34%) of the country rates increased spending on scientific research as
a top policy priority.

Underlying many of these and other
findings are deep divisions along the traditional fault lines of American life,
including race, age and education. However, among the more striking differences
found in this survey are those between Republicans and Democrats. Taken
together, the size and frequency of these differences underscore the extent to
which partisan polarization underpins not just the current political climate
but views of the future as well.

Across
a range of issues, the difference between partisans is not merely apparent, but
conspicuously large. Despite shared concern about the future quality of the
nation’s public schools, about two-thirds of Democrats and those who lean
Democratic (66%), but only 36% of Republicans and Republican leaners, rate
increased spending on education as a top federal government priority. About
six-in-ten Democrats (58%) but only 19% of Republicans say the news media will
have a positive impact on solving the country’s future problems. About
four-in-ten Democrats (42%) say a majority-nonwhite population will strengthen
American customs and values, a view expressed by only 13% of Republicans.
Similarly, about six-in-ten Democrats (61%) but just a third of Republicans
consider the growth of interracial marriage to be a good thing for society.
Partisan gaps on future priorities reflect similar gaps in current policy
priorities. Recent research has
shown that Republicans and Democrats have moved farther apart in recent decades
in their views on what the top priorities for Congress and the president should
be.

Partisan differences are particularly
large on issues related to the environment. About six-in-ten Democrats (61%)
but only 15% of Republicans say they are very worried about climate change. An
even larger share of Democrats (70%) predict the condition of the environment
will get worse in the next 30 years, while 43% of Republicans agree.

Even their top priorities for the
future are, in many instances, strikingly different. Among all adults, health
care and increased spending on education topped the list of policies that the
public believes the federal government should enact to improve the quality of
life for future generations. Yet the top-three Republican priorities – reducing
the number of undocumented immigrants, cutting the national debt and avoiding
tax increases – don’t even appear among the Democrats’ highest five priorities.

Conversely, three of the five
Democratic priorities – dealing with climate change, reducing the gap between
rich and poor, and increasing spending on Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid – are absent from the GOP’s top-five list. Providing high-quality
health care and increasing spending on education are top priorities for each
party, though larger shares of Democrats than Republicans rank these issues as
top priorities.

It is perhaps fitting that, while the two parties hold similar
views on a number of issues, one area of agreement stands out: Majorities of
both parties agree that the country will be more politically divided in 2050
than it is today.

The
nationally representative survey of 2,524 adults was conducted online Dec.
11-23, 2018, using Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.1 Among
the other key findings:

Majorities of Americans predict a tougher time financially for
older adults in 2050

About seven-in-ten Americans (72%)
expect older adults will be less prepared financially for retirement in 2050
than they are today. An even larger share (83%) predict that most people will
have to work into their 70s in order to afford to retire. And the public’s
forecast for the future of the Social Security system is decidedly grim.

Among those who are not yet retired, 42% expect to receive no
Social Security benefits when they leave the workforce, and another 42%
anticipate that benefits will be reduced from what they are today.

Adults
younger than 50 are particularly doubtful that Social Security will be there
when they leave the workforce: 48% expect to receive no Social Security
benefits when they retire. By contrast, 28% of those who are 50 or older are
similarly pessimistic. But even among this older group, only about a quarter
(23%) expect to receive Social Security benefits at current levels. These
findings reflect a long-standing skepticism –
particularly among young adults – about the long-term solvency of the Social
Security system.

Even as they doubt the long-term
financial viability of the Social Security system, most Americans reject
reducing benefits. Only a quarter believe that some reductions in benefits for
future retirees will need to be made to shore up the system’s finances, while
about three times as many say benefits should not be reduced in any way.

Few Americans predict a better
standard of living for families in 2050

More than four-in-ten Americans (44%)
predict that the average family’s standard of living will get worse rather than
better over the next 30 years. That’s roughly double the share (20%) who expect
families to fare better financially in the future than they do today; 35%
predict no real change.

When it comes to prospects for
children, half of the public says children will have a worse standard of living
in 30 years than they do today, while 42% predict that they will be better off.
Men are more likely than women to say children’s standard of living will be
higher in 30 years than it is today (47% vs. 36%), while those who do not have
children in the home are somewhat more pessimistic about this than those who do
(52% vs. 44% say children will have a worse standard of living).

Large majority says health care
for all would benefit future generations

When asked what the federal government should do to improve the
quality of life for future generations, providing high-quality, affordable
health care to all Americans stands out as the most popular policy
prescription. Roughly two-thirds (68%) say this should be a top priority for
government in the future.

Increased spending on education is
somewhat less popular; 54% say more money for schools should be a top federal
government priority in order to improve life for future generations. Slightly
fewer say the same about reducing the national debt or dealing with climate
change (49% and 48%, respectively, say each should be a top priority). A larger
share of Republicans than Democrats prioritize cutting the debt, while just the
opposite is true for climate change.

Increasing spending on Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid is viewed as a top priority by 47% of adults,
and reducing the gap between rich and poor is seen as such by 44%. Falling
further down the list are avoiding tax increases, reducing the number of
undocumented immigrants coming into the U.S., increasing spending on infrastructure
and more money for scientific research.

Minorities are more optimistic
than whites about the country’s future

Overall, 56% of all adults say they
are either very optimistic (12%) or somewhat optimistic (44%) about the U.S. in
2050. But more than four-in-ten (44%) see the country’s future more darkly,
including 13% who say they are very pessimistic and 31% who are somewhat
pessimistic about America in 30 years.

Black and Hispanic adults are among the most optimistic about the
country’s future. Seven-in-ten blacks and two-thirds of Hispanics feel hopeful
about America’s future. In contrast, about half of all whites (51%) are as
confident. High school graduates and those with less education also are
somewhat more positive about the country’s prospects than are college graduates
(60% vs. 53%).

Unlike the wide partisan differences
seen elsewhere in this survey, Democrats and Republicans are about equally
optimistic when it comes to these broad predictions about America’s future.

The racial pattern switches when
Americans are asked about the future of race relations over the next 30 years.
Slightly more than half of all whites (54%) but 43% of blacks and 45% of
Hispanics say relations will get better. Overall, the country is divided on the
future of race relations: About half (51%) say they will improve, while 40% predict
they will get worse.

Most Americans worry about the
country’s moral values; half say religion will become less important

Roughly four-in-ten Americans (43%)
say they are very worried about the nation’s morals, while another 34% are
fairly worried. For Republicans, the country’s moral health is a major concern:
Roughly half (49%) say, when they think about the country’s future, they are
very worried about the moral values of Americans. Only about a third of
Democrats (36%) are equally worried. Women are more concerned about the
country’s morals than men (46% vs. 38%), while older Americans are more worried
than those younger than 50 (49% vs. 37%).

The public is divided over whether religion will become less
important over the next 30 years than it is now. Half say religion will lose
importance, while 42% say it will remain unchanged (respondents were not given
the option of saying religion will be more important).

A majority of whites (56%) but only a
third of blacks and four-in-ten Hispanics say the importance of religion will
decline over the next 30 years. Adults with more formal education are more
likely to see religion in eclipse than those with less: 54% of all college
graduates but 43% of those with a high school degree or less education predict
the declining importance of religion.

Among religious groups, roughly equal
shares of white evangelicals (52%), white mainline Protestants (51%) and white
Catholics (54%) say religion will be less important in the future – a view held
by a similar share (59%) of those who are atheist, agnostic or nothing in
particular.

Older adults, those with less
education more negative about the impact of automation

While only 37% of all currently employed Americans personally see
automation as a direct threat to their current occupation, less well-educated
workers are likelier than those with more formal schooling to say the type of
work they do will be done by robots or computers in the future. About half
(47%) of those with a high school diploma or less education say this change
will occur compared with 38% of those with some college experience and 27% of
those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree.

Most Americans agree that the
workplaces of the future will be heavily automated. About eight-in-ten (82%)
predict that robots and computers will do much of the work currently done by
humans – a possibility that many adults with less education view with
suspicion, if not outright dread. Among those who say robots and computers will
do much of the work currently done by humans, about eight-in-ten of those with
a high school diploma or less education say this would be a bad thing for the
country (39% say it would be very bad; 39% say it would be somewhat bad). Those
with a bachelor’s degree or more education are less fearful: Roughly six-in-ten
say an automated workplace would be very (13%) or somewhat bad (45%).

Regardless of educational background,
most Americans predict that automation in the workplace will increase
inequality between the rich and the poor and will not result in new,
better-paying jobs.

Who will pay – and who should pay – for long-term eldercare in the future?

A slim majority of Americans (55%) say
that government should be mostly responsible for paying for long-term care for
older adults who need assistance in the future. But when asked who will be
responsible for paying for this care in the future, only about half that share
(28%) say the financial burden will fall on the government. Instead, about
seven-in-ten predict that family members (35%) or older adults themselves (36%)
will bear these costs.

Similar shares of most key demographic
groups agree about who will pay the bills for long-term care in the future. But
these groups often differ about who should be primarily responsible for the
costs of this care. Two-thirds of blacks and Hispanics (67%) say government
should be mostly responsible for paying for long-term care for older adults,
while about half of whites (51%) agree. Similarly, two-thirds of adults ages 50
to 64 say government should be mostly responsible for this care compared with
about half of all other age groups, including those 65 and older. In addition,
two-thirds of Americans with family incomes under $30,000 look to government to
cover the cost, compared with about half of those with higher incomes.

Democrats see a bigger role than
Republicans for the government in paying for long-term elder care (66% vs.
40%). On the other hand, Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to
believe older adults themselves should be primarily responsible for paying for
their care (40% vs. 21%). Relatively few Democrats (11%) or Republicans (18%)
say the responsibility should fall mainly to family members.

Predictions about the future of
marriage, divorce and childbearing differ by race

Overall,
about half of adults (53%) say that, by 2050, people will be less likely to get
married than they are today. Very few (7%) predict that people will be more likely
to marry in the future, and 39% say things will stay about the same. Whites and
Hispanics are much more likely than blacks to predict lower marriage rates in
the future – 56% of whites and 53% of Hispanics say people will be less likely
to marry compared with 34% of blacks. Blacks are the only group in which a
majority say marriage rates will stay the same or increase. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, blacks are significantly less likely than whites or
Hispanics to be married. Among those ages 18 and older, 31% of blacks were
married in 2017 compared with 46% of Hispanics and 54% of whites.2

Predictions about the future of
divorce reveal a somewhat different pattern. More than six-in-ten whites (64%)
but half of blacks and 42% of Hispanics expect people will be about as likely
to get divorced in 2050 as they are today. In this regard, Hispanics are more
pessimistic than whites about the future state of marriage: 37% predict that
people will be more likely to divorce in the future, compared with 27% of
whites and 30% of blacks.

More than four-in-ten Americans (46%)
expect that, by 2050, people will be less likely to have children than they are
now. A similar share (43%) think people will be about as likely to have
children, while just one-in-ten expect people to be more likely to have
children in the future. Young adults are more likely than older Americans to
say this is the case. Even so, only 18% of those ages 18 to 29 say they expect
that people in 2050 will be more likely to have children, compared with 9% of
adults 30 to 49 and 7% of those ages 50 and older.

THE ENTIRE REASON
OUR BORDERS

ARE WIDE OPEN IS TO KEEP WAGES

DEPRESSED.

The past 40 years
have seen the

consolidation of a plutocratic elite, which has

subordinated
every aspect of American

society to a single goal: amassing ever more

colossal
amounts of personal wealth. The top

one percent have captured all of
the increase

in national income over the past two decades,

and all of
the increase in national wealth since

the 2008 crash.

Wealth concentration increases in US and
globally

The latest research on wealth
inequality by University of California economics professor Gabriel Zucman
underscores one of the key social and economic trends since the global
financial crisis of 2008. Those at the very top of society, who benefited
directly from the orgy of speculation that led to the crash, have seen their
wealth accumulate at an even faster rate, while the mass of the population has
suffered a major decline.

This trend is most apparent in
the United States but is revealed in the data for other countries included in
research published by Zucman last month. According to his analysis, the top 1
percent in the US now owns about 40 percent of total household wealth,
increasing its share by at least 10 percentage points since 1989. Over the same
period “the share of wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent has collapsed in
similar proportions.”

The acceleration is even more
marked in the highest income levels. The share of wealth owned by the top
0.00025 percent (roughly the 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes
Magazine data), rose from 1 percent in the early 1980s to over 3
percent in recent years. A similar tripling of wealth is seen in the top 0.01
percent.

The trend is reflected globally.
The proportion of wealth held by the top 1 percent in China, Europe and the US
combined has increased from 28 percent in 1980 to around 33 percent today.

As documented in previous studies
by Zucman, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, wealth concentration in the US has
followed a U-shape during the past century. The share of the top 0.1 percent
peaked at close to 25 percent in 1929, fell sharply with the onset of the Great
Depression in the 1930s and continued to decline into the late 1940s, then
stabilised in the 1950s and 1960s. It reached its lowest point in the 1970s,
before rising to close to 20 percent in recent years to “levels last seen in
the Roaring Twenties.”

This pattern follows the broad
curve of economic developments and the class struggle. The 1930s fall in wealth
concentration was the outcome of both the financial crisis and the impact of
the New Deal measures introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt in order, as
he acknowledged, to avert social revolution in the US.

During the 1950s and 1960s and
the development of the post-war economic boom, when it was said that a “rising
tide lifts all boats,” wealth concentration remained relatively stable. The
ongoing increase in wealth concentration since the 1980s is the outcome of two
interconnected factors: the rise of financialisation in the US economy, and
consequent changes in the accumulation of profit, coupled with the decades-long
organised suppression of the class struggle by the trade union bureaucracy.

One of the indicators of the role
of finance in boosting the wealth of the ultra-wealthy is that in 1980 the top
0.01 of interest earners had 2.6 percent of all taxable interest, whereas by
2012 this had increased ten-fold to 27.3 percent.

Zucman’s paper details the
increase in global wealth inequality. In the US, China and Europe combined, the
top 10 percent owns more than 70 percent of the total wealth, the bottom 50
percent less than 2 percent and the middle 40 percent less than 30 percent.

The higher up the income scale,
the faster the rate of wealth accumulation. In the US, Europe and China, from
1987 to 2017 the average wealth of the top 1 percent rose by 3.5 percent per
year, the top 0.1 percent by 4.4 percent per year, and the top 0.01 percent by
5.6 percent per year.

The trend has been most marked in
Russia, following the privatisation of state assets as a result of the
dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. “In Russia, wealth
concentration boomed after the transition to capitalism, and inequality appears
to be extremely high, on a par or even higher than in the United States,” the
report notes.

A parallel development can be
seen in the restoration of capitalism in China. In both countries “the
available evidence suggests a high increase in wealth inequality over the last
two decades.” The top 1 percent wealth share has almost doubled, rising in
China from just over 15 percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2015 and in Russia
from below 22 percent to around 43 percent.

Zucman notes that as wealth
inequality increases, it is becoming more difficult to measure, because of the
development of a “large offshore wealth management industry” that makes some
forms of wealth, particularly financial portfolios, harder to track.

The problem is revealed in the
widely varying estimates of how much wealth is held offshore. Zucman has
calculated that 8 percent of the world’s individual wealth—the equivalent of 10
percent of global gross domestic product or $5.6 trillion—was held offshore on
the eve of the global financial crisis in 2007. He cites other analyses that
put the figure much higher. According to one study, the global rich held around
$12 trillion of the wealth in tax havens in 2007, with another putting the
figure at between $21 and $32 trillion.

This means that the existing
studies on wealth concentration, which Zucman and others have carried out using
self-reported survey and tax return data, are inadequate to grasp its real
extent.

“Because the wealthy have access
to many opportunities for tax avoidance and tax evasion— and because the
available evidence suggests that the tax planning industry has grown since the
1980s as it became globalized—traditional data sources may underestimate
inequality,” Zucman states.

Zucman is well aware of the
political consequences of the rise in social inequality that he and others have
documented. He notes that “for the rich, wealth begets power” and wealth
concentration “may help explain the lack of redistributive responses to the
rise of inequality observed since the 1980s.”

Zucman’s latest findings will no
doubt be used by Democratic presidential hopefuls such as Elizabeth Warren and
the newly-elected Democratic Socialists of America Congress member Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez as they seek to give the Democratic Party a “left” face by
calling for increased taxes on the wealthy.

But the data produced by Zucman
and others refute the assertion that social inequality can or will be rectified
by legislative changes. This is because the concentration of wealth—though
aided and abetted by successive administrations, both Democrat and Republican—in
the final analysis is rooted in vast changes in the very structure of American
and global capitalism, arising from its deepening historical crisis.

In other words, it is the outcome
of a process of capital accumulation, based on financialisation, that has institutionalised
the siphoning of wealth up the income scale.

This cannot be overcome through
appeals to the financial oligarchy to change course but only by a frontal
assault against its rule, that is, the development of a mass struggle for
socialism by the American and international working class. The conditions for
this fight are emerging as a result of the resurgence of the class struggle
being driven forward by the consequences of deepening social inequality. The
aim of Warren, Ocasio-Cortez et al, is try to divert this movement and bring it
under the wing of the Democratic Party.

"It identifies socialism with proposals for
mild social reform such as “Medicare for all,” raised and increasingly
abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton Friedman
and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of “economic freedom,” i.e.,
the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all
social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or
anything else that impinges on the oligarchy’s self-enrichment."

America’s Thanksgivings… Yeah, right!

In an effort to give a
livelier and more in-depth picture of modern life, American novelists such as
John Dos Passos—The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932)
and The Big Money (1936)—introduced “newsreel” sections
including headlines, advertisements and popular songs. We hope the following
selections will provide some sense of American reality on Thanksgiving Day
2018.

—“On his days
off from his $7.50-an-hour job as a cook at the Chicken Hut restaurant in
Riverdale, Ga.[Georgia], Laugudria Screven Jr., 23,
travels more than 25 miles across Atlanta to sell plasma. By offering up his
arm to a technician’s needle twice a week at $50 a shot, he scrapes together
enough to pay his $360 rent.

“Yet donating plasma
takes a toll on Screven’s body, leaving him drowsy and weak. And even with the
extra income, he says he sometimes can’t afford to eat more than once a day.
Often he comes home to a refrigerator that contains little more than mustard,
ketchup and peanut butter.

“‘I sell my blood to
pay my bills,’he said, rubbing his arm as he waited for a bus in East
Point, Ga.‘It’s kind of messed up. If I were paid a fair wage, I
wouldn’t have to go through this.’”(Los Angeles Times)

— “Set on 40
acres in Newport, Rhode Island, Castle Hill Inn, a Relais & Châteaux
property, provides guests with a classic New England Thanksgiving. Chef Lou
Rossi—an alum of NYC’s three-Michelin-starred Per Se—showcases the local
harvest with appetizers like Native littleneck clams, Matunuck oysters and
chilled white shrimp, plus herb roasted Helger’s Farm turkey with sage gravy
and cranberry sauce, and a selection of pies, pastries and tarts. The hotel
also features a spa, the Retreat at Castle Hill by Farmaesthetics, and has a
selection of romantic and rustic rooms and cottages available by the beach,
overlooking the harbor, and on its namesake hill.[A room in the
Superior Beach House is $1,091.45a nightincluding
taxes and fees.] (Town & Country)

—“Hundreds of
people in need lined Bleecker Street in downtown Utica[New York]to
receive a free Thanksgiving day meal to make with their families. …This
year roughly 700 meals were donated, an increase of about 200 from last year.
In Utica 1 in 3 people are living in poverty, according to DataUSA.”(WKTV)

—“Despite a
relatively good economy, local food pantries are seeing a double-digit increase
in the number of hungry residents. Des Moines [Iowa] pantries normally expect
about a 3.5 percent increase each month, compared to the previous year. But for
the last six months, that increase has more than tripled in the metro area,
said Rev. Sarai Schnucker Rice, executive director of the Des Moines Area
Religious Council, which oversees the network of 14 local pantries.”(Des
Moines Register)

—“Though major
cities, such as Dayton [Ohio], are often thought of as having the most
households facing hardship, several of the Gem City’s suburbs actually rival
it. Thousands of families around the Miami Valley are not necessarily in
poverty but are still struggling to get by financially, according to the United
Way report.”(Dayton Daily News)

—“Three
dynastic wealth families—the Waltons, the Kochs, and the Mars—have seen their
wealth increase nearly 6,000percent since 1982. Meanwhile,
median household wealth over the same period went down by 3 percent. …

“The median family in
the United States owns just over $80,000 in household wealth. The richest
person in the United States (and the world), Jeff Bezos, has accumulated a fortune
nearly 2 million times that amount. The Bezos fortune expanded by $78.5 billion
just in the last year to $160 billion. Even at the recently increased wage of
$15/hour, a full-time Amazon worker would need to toil for 2.5 million years to
generate this much money.”(Institute for Policy Studies)

—“Gone are
lucrative manufacturing positions[in Indianapolis, Indiana]that
could elevate a family into the middle class, even without higher education.
Those jobs were in city neighborhoods. They offered salaries high enough to pay
for homes, send kids to college, and build up savings accounts. And there were
tons of them. At their peaks, the General Motors stamping plant employed 5,600
people, Western Electric had 8,000 workers, and RCA had 8,200.

“But today, scattered
brownfields—some with crumbling buildings, some vacant lots—are the only
remnants of those once-bustling factories. …

“Stefanie Bell and
Steven Pedrazoli—and their 8-year-old son, Chance—are living that new reality.
Both parents have regularly worked, but the family is homeless. They’ve been
living since April at Dayspring Center at 1537 Central Ave.

“Bell, 37, a server,
has uncertain wages because she relies on tips and a $2.13 hourly wage that
barely covers taxes. During some shifts, the money at Primanti Bros. restaurant
downtown is good. During others, factoring in $3.50 for a round-trip IndyGo bus
fare, it’s barely worth showing up. The night before meeting with IBJ, Bell
made just $30 in tips, despite working 5 p.m. to close.”(Indianapolis
Business Journal)

—“There are a
lot of things in life you might expect to cost $150,000—just probably not a
Thanksgiving dinner. And yet, that’s exactly what Old Homestead, a New York
City steakhouse, is offering this year with what it bills as the most expensive
Thanksgiving dinner in history, topping the record set by the $76,000 dinner
the restaurant offered last year.

“This year’s dinner,
which at a total price of $150,000 is nearly three times more than the average
U.S. household income, comes complete with all of the world’s finest
ingredients, as well as keys to a 2018 Maserati Levante nestled inside a
$135-per-pound free-range, organic turkey sprinkled with gold
flakes.” (Yahoo Finance)

—“Near where he
slept on a Salinas [California] sidewalk Monday night, David Rodriguez, 39,
regularly gets meals at Dorothy’s Kitchen in Salinas’Chinatown. He
has not gone to the nonprofit’s Thanksgiving festivity before, but he plans on
going for the first time Thursday.

“Born and raised in the
Salinas Valley, Rodriguez grew up going to his grandmother’s for Thanksgiving.
Homeless since 2012, Rodriguez said he considers many others in Chinatown—a
neighborhood often synonymouswith poverty—like his family.The
opportunity to share his childhood tradition with his new family would mean a
lot to him, he said.”(The Californian)

—“The 8thAnnual
Readers’Choice Survey from Business Jet Travelerprovides an
interesting look into why people fly privately, what they want in their private
jets, where they are going, who they fly with, their favorite aircraft and
more.… First some good news. If flying privately and planning to
fly privately are signs of a strong economy, readers are quite optimistic.
While 45% of respondents said they flew about the same amount as the previous
year, 22% said they flew more and 8% said they flew much more, compared to 14%
who flew a bit less and 12% who flew much less. Looking ahead, 44% of the
magazine’s readers said they will fly about the same during the next 12 months,
34% said they will fly a bit more and 11% will fly much more, compared to just
11% who predict they will fly less.”(Forbes)

—“Last August,
Destini Johnson practically danced out of jail, after landing there for two
months on drug charges. She bubbled with excitement about her new freedom and
returning home to her parents in Muncie, Ind. She even talked about plans to
find a job.

“Eight months later,
Johnson, 27, lay in a coma, silent except for the beeping of machines. She
looked small and pale, buried in a tangle of hospital bedsheets and tubes,
after suffering a dozen or so strokes as a result of her latest opioid
overdose.

“Her mother, Katiena
Johnson, kept vigil at the intensive care unit at Ball Memorial Hospital in
Muncie every day, fretting not only about whether her daughter would live, or
how much brain damage she’d suffered, but also how to pay for the myriad costs
resulting from the latest harrowing chapter of Destini’s opioid addiction.
Katiena Johnson says her daughter is regaining consciousness and is out of the
ICU.”(NPR)

—“We are
especially reminded on Thanksgiving of how the virtue of gratitude enables us
to recognize, even in adverse situations, the love of God in every person,
every creature, and throughout nature. Let us be mindful of the reasons we are
grateful for our lives, for those around us, and for our communities. We also
commit to treating all with charity and mutual respect, spreading the spirit of
Thanksgiving throughout our country and across the world.”(Donald
J. Trump’sPresidential Proclamation on Thanksgiving Day,November
20,2018)

—“MAKE AMERICA
GREAT AGAIN!AMERICA FIRST! …

“There are a lot of
CRIMINALS in the[immigrant]Caravan. We will stop them.
Catch and Detain! Judicial Activism, by people who know nothing about security
and the safety of our citizens, is putting our country in great danger. Not
good!”(Donald J. Trump’s tweets, November 21)

—“Some vehicles
made it out in time the day the Camp Fire[in northern California]ignited.
Others became grenades after being hit by flaming embers. The worst of it may
have happened in a town called Paradise, approximate population 26,000.‘I
was driving down Neal Road, and the houses by the horse stables were already on
fire—the side of the road was on fire as we were driving through,’said
David Cuen, a Paradise resident who I met at a tent encampment of Camp Fire
survivors in a Walmart parking lot in Chico. Neal Road is one of only three
roads from Paradise with access to Highway 99. It was one of the few ways out:‘I
look in my rear-view mirror, count back 10 cars, and the 10thor
15thcar, it blew up. The flames had overwhelmed all the cars by
it. And the cops were making people get in cars that had room. So, you’re
talking four to five people in each car.’Cuen spent the week after
escaping the fire sharing a tent with his wife and her family.”(Slate)

* * * * *

Vast popular hardship
and suffering, on the one hand, and almost indescribable wealth and social
indifference, on the other. Two parties of the corporate oligarchy, dedicated
to war and political reaction. The impossible economic and political conditions
must produce sooner rather than later the greatest social upheavals in American
history.

"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp
growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of
2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people
aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale
uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the
world.”

"The ruling
class was particularly terrified by the teachers’

walkouts earlier
this year because the biggest strikes were

organized by
rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against

the unions,
reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate

organizations
that have suppressed the class struggle for

decades."

“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive
12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is
just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer
Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class
living standards and a further
concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”

"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling
an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of
society, while the economy is starved of productive investment,
the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards
are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government
austerity policies, is part of a
broader global process."

"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance
of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow
international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to
further enrich itself."

White House report on socialism

The
specter of Marx haunts the American ruling class

6 November 2018

Last month, the Council
of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released an
extraordinary report titled “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism.” The report
begins with the statement: “Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl
Marx’s birth, socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse.
Detailed policy proposals from self-declared socialists are gaining support in
Congress and among much of the younger electorate.”

The very fact that the
US government officially acknowledges a growth of popular

support for socialism,
particularly among the nation’s youth, testifies to vast changes taking place
in the political consciousness of the working class and the terror this is
striking within the ruling elite. America is, after all, a country
where anti-communism was for the greater part of a century a
state-sponsored secular religion. No ruling class has so ruthlessly
sought to exclude socialist politics

from political
discourse as the American ruling class.

The 70-page document is
itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism by
identifying it with capitalist countries such as Venezuela that have expanded
state ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of
the banks, and, with the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices,
increasingly attacked the living standards of the working class.

It identifies socialism
with proposals for mild social reform such as “Medicare for all,” raised and
increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton
Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of “economic freedom,”
i.e., the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all
social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything else that
impinges on the oligarchy’s self-enrichment.

The report’s arguments
and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of Donald Trump,
who routinely and absurdly attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them
of seeking to turn America into another “socialist” Venezuela.

What has prompted this
effort to blackguard socialism?

A series of recent
polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with
capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by
the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said
they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with
the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”

Last November, a poll
conducted by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 21
and 29 would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than in a
capitalist country.

In August of this year,
a Gallup poll found that for the first time

since the organization
began tracking the figure, fewer than half

of Americans aged 18–29
had a positive view of capitalism, while

more than half had a
positive view of socialism. The percentage of young people
viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45
percent this year, a 23-percentage point drop in just eight years.

This surge in interest
in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in the US and
internationally. In the United States, the number of major strikes so far this
year, 21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly
terrified by the teachers’ walkouts earlier this year because the biggest
strikes were organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the
unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that
have suppressed the class struggle for decades.

The growth of the class
struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global crisis of
capitalism, which finds its most acute social and political expression in the
center of world capitalism—the United States. It is the class struggle that
provides the key to the fight for genuine socialism.

Masses of workers and
youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by decades of
uninterrupted war and the staggering growth of social inequality. This process
has accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The
Obama years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in
history, the escalation of the wars begun under Bush and their spread to Libya,
Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass surveillance, attacks on
immigrants and other police state measures.

This paved the way for
the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and backwardness
of the ruling oligarchy.

Under conditions where
the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much as the
average worker makes in an entire year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest
Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a
radical alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in
its program eight years ago, “The Breakdown of
Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism in the United States”:

The change in objective conditions, however, will lead
American workers to change their minds. The reality of capitalism will provide
workers with many reasons to fight for a fundamental and revolutionary change
in the economic organization of society.

The response of the
ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic forms
of rule and the turn toward dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections
has revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump’s fascistic
attacks on immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down
unarmed men, women and children seeking asylum, and his pledge to overturn the
14th Amendment establishing birthright citizenship.

That this has evoked no
serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that the entire
ruling class is united around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats
are spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing
and socialist opposition.

The second response is
to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists
of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the
working class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.

In 2018, with Sanders
totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has been
largely delegated to the DSA, which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two
DSA members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit,
are likely to win seats in the House of Representatives as candidates of the
Democratic Party.

The closer they come to
taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their supposed
socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing
the recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if
she opposed the US wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for
the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

OBAMA:
SERVANT OF THE 1%

Richest
one percent controls nearly half of global wealth

The richest one
percent of the world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth,
up from 46 percent last year.

Record high income in 2017 for top
one percent of wage earners in US

In 2017, the top one
percent of US wage earners received their highest paychecks ever, according to
a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Based on newly released
data from the Social Security Administration, the EPI shows that the top one
percent of the population saw their paychecks increase by 3.7 percent in 2017—a
rate nearly quadruple the bottom 90 percent of the population. The growth was
driven by the top 0.1 percent, which includes many CEOs and corporate
executives, whose pay increased eight percent and averaged $2,757,000 last
year.

The EPI report is only
the latest exposure of the gaping inequality between the vast majority of the
population and the modern-day aristocracy that rules over them.

The EPI shows that the
bottom 90 percent of wage earners have increased their pay by 22.2 percent
between 1979 and 2017. Today, this bottom 90 percent makes an average of just
$36,182 a year, which is eaten up by the cost of housing and the growing burden
of education, health care, and retirement.

Meanwhile, the top one
percent has increased its wages by 157 percent during this same period, a rate
seven times faster than the other group. This top segment makes an average of
$718,766 a year. Those in-between, the 90th to 99th percentile, have increased
their wages by 57.4 percent. They now make an average of $152,476 a year—more
than four times the bottom 90 percent.

Graph
from the Economic Policy Institute

Decades of decaying
capitalism have led to this accelerating divide. While the rich accumulate
wealth with no restriction, workers’ wages and benefits have been under
increasing attack. In 1979, 90 percent of the population took in 70 percent of
the nation’s income. But, by 2017, that fell to only 61 percent.

Even more, while the
bottom 90 percent of the population may take in 61 percent of the wages, large
sections of the workforce today barely pull in any income at all. For
example, Social Security Administration data found that the bottom 54
percent of wage earners in the United States, 89.5 million people, make an
average of just $15,100 a year. This 54 percent of the population earns only 17
percent of all wages paid in America.

However unequal, these
wage inequalities still do not fully present the divide between rich and poor.
The ultra-wealthy derive their wealth not primarily from wages, but from assets
and equities—principally from the stock market. While the bottom 90 percent of
the population made 61 percent of the wages in 2017, they owned even less, just
27 percent of the wealth (according to the World Inequality Report
2018 by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman).

The massive increase in
the value of the stock market, which only a small segment of the population
participates in, means that the top 10 percent of the population controls 73
percent of all wealth in the United States. Just three men—Jeff Bezos, Warren
Buffet and Bill Gates—had more wealth than the bottom half of America combined
last year.

Wages are so low in the
United States that roughly half of the population falls deeper into debt every
year. A Reuters report from July found that the pretax net income (that is,
income minus expense) of the bottom 40 percent of the population was an average
of negative $11,660. Even the middle quintile of the population,
the 40th to 60th percentile, breaks even with an average of only $2,836 a year.

As the Social Security
Administration numbers show, 67.4 percent of the population made less than the
average wage, $48,250 a year in 2017, a sum that is inadequate to support a
family in many cities—especially, with high housing costs, health care,
education, and retirement factored in.

For the ruling class,
though, workers’ wages are already too much. The volatility of the stock market
and the deep fear that the current bull market will collapse has made
politicians and businessmen anxious of any sign of wage increases.

In August, wages in the
US rose just 0.2 percent above the inflation rate, the highest in nine years.
Though the increase was tiny, it was enough to encourage the Federal Reserve to
increase the interest rate past two percent for the first time since 2008.
Raising interest rates helps to depress workers’ wages by lowering borrowing
and spending. As the Financial Times noted, stopping wage
growth was “central” to the Federal Reserve’s move.

Further analysis of the
Social Security Administration data shows that in 2017, 147,754 people reported
wages of 1 million dollars or more—roughly, the top 0.05 percent. Their
combined total income of $372 billion could pay for the US federal education
budget five times over.

These wages, however
large, still pale in comparison to the money the ultra-rich acquire from the
stock market. For example, share buybacks and dividend payments, a way of
funneling money to shareholders, will eclipse $1 trillion this year.

Whatever the immediate
source, the wealth of the rich derives from the great mass of people who do the
actual work. Across the United States and around the world, workers, young
people, and students have entered into struggle this year over pay, education,
health care, immigration, war and democratic rights. This growing movement of
the working class must set as its aim confiscating the wealth and power of this
tiny parasitic oligarchy. Society’s wealth must be democratically controlled by
those who produce it.

THE
ENTIRE REASON BEHIND AMNESTY IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE REAL
COST OF "CHEAP" MEXICAN LABOR TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS.

AND IT'S WORKING!

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS

“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great
moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably
expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and
middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million
good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay
equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes
on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A
Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security
benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER

YOU THOUGHT OBAMA INVITED
OBAMANOMICS and started the assault on the American middle-class?

NOPE!

“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic
Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New
Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an
ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO
E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994
Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has
helped create the largest prison population in the world.”

The report found that the growth of global inequality has
accelerated sharply since the 2008 financial crisis, as the values of financial
assets have soared while wages have stagnated and declined.

Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019

By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015

Households with more than a million
(US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global
private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston
Consulting Group (BCG).

This large percentage, however,
only includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held
through managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves
out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial
portion of the rich’s net worth.

At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41
percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that
collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in
liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.

In total, the world added $17.5
trillion of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that
nearly three quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth.
In other words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing
assets increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.

This trend is the result of the
massive infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks.
The policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the
stock market even while global economic growth has slumped.

While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace,
there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards
the very top.

In
2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase
11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion
in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report,
“This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of
households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound
growth on their wealth in the next five years.

Those families with wealth between
$20 and $100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent
increase in their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In
five years they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.

Coming in last in the “high net
worth” population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private
wealth. These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent
each year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several
percentage points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.

The
gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the
experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth accumulation
has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not
even begun to recover from the past recession.

An Oxfam report from
January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s
population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to
having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth
rise from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.

In
2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and 2013, the median
household net worth of those in the United States fell from $87,992 to
$56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop during
the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between 2009 and
2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1 percent.
This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.

As the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between
2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times
more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The
2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all
from income growth.”

Another report by Knight
Frank, looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes
that in 2014 these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their
collective wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8
trillion.

The report also draws attention to
the disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the
growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated
global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its
forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”

DICK MORRIS:

On America’s First Family of Crime….. NO! Not
the Bushes again!

Clinton global hucksterism – Selling out America
like they sold out the Lincoln Bedroom.

At this point, Clinton is
the choice of most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White
House. A recent CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for
Clinton in a contest with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s
showing in the 2012 election with the same group.

Sen. Bernie Sanders – America’s answer to Wall
Street’s looting, the war on the American middle-class and jobs for legals!

“At this point, Clinton is the choice of
most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White House. A recent
CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for Clinton in a contest
with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s showing in the 2012
election with the same group.”

“By the
time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely
repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society
periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap
labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a
growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill,
with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest
prison population in the world.”

*

“Calling
income and wealth inequality the "great moral issue of our time,"
Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably expensive program to transfer
wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and middle class. A $1 trillion
public works program to create "13 million good-paying jobs." A
$15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay equity" for women. Paid sick
leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Free tuition at
all public colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all single-payer health
care system. Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON
EXAMINER

OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the
LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

The
corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated
$1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in
the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are
using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.

LAST WEEK BARACK OBAMA
CELEBRATED FIVE YEARS OF THE LOOTING BY HIS WALL STREET BANKSTERS… now it’s
back to cutting social programs to pay for all that rape by the 1% he
represents. The following week it will be back to the AMNESTY HOAX to legalize
Mexico’s looting of America and make it legal that Mexicans get our jobs first…
they already do!

As in previous budget
crises under the Obama administration, the events are being stage-managed by
the two corporate-controlled parties to give the illusion of partisan gridlock
and confrontation over principles—in this case, whether to go forward with the
implementation of the Obama health care program—while behind the scenes all
factions within the ruling elite agree that massive cuts must be carried
through in basic federal social programs.

Millionaires
projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019

By
Gabriel Black
18 June 2015

Households with more than a million (US)
dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private
wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting
Group (BCG).

This large percentage, however, only
includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held through
managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out
businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion
of the rich’s net worth.

At the end of 2014, millionaire households
owned about 41 percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means
that collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in
liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.

In total, the world added $17.5 trillion
of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three
quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth. In other
words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets
increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.

This trend is the result of the massive infusions
of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of
“quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even
while global economic growth has slumped.

While the wealth of the rich is growing at
a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy,
skewed towards the very top.

In 2014, those with over $100 million in
private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone.
Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the
world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected
to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.”
They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next
five years.

Those families with wealth between $20 and
$100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in
their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years
they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.

Coming in last in the “high net worth”
population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth.
These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each
year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage
points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.

The gains in private wealth of the
ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the experience of billions of people
around the globe. While wealth accumulation has sharply sped up for the
ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not even begun to recover from
the past recession.

An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent
of the world’s population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s
wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent
saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.

In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found
that between 2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in the
United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich
also saw their wealth drop during the recession, they are more than making that
money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US
went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income
gain on record.

As the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between
2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times
more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The
2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all
from income growth.”

Another report by Knight Frank,
looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014
these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective
wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.

The report also draws attention to the
disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the
growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated
global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its
forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”

“By the
time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely
repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society
periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap
labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a
growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill,
with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest
prison population in the world.”

*

“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great
moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably
expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and
middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million
good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay
equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes
on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A
Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security
benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER

OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the
LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

The
corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated
$1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in
the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are
using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.

Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of
global private wealth by 2019

By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015

Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth
are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a
new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

This large percentage, however, only includes cash, savings, money
market funds and listed securities held through managed
investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out businesses,
residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s
net worth.

At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41 percent
of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that collectively these
17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in liquid assets, or about
$4 million per household.

In total, the world added $17.5 trillion of new private wealth
between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three quarters of all these
gains came from previously existing wealth. In other words, the vast majority
of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets increasing in value—not the
creation of new material things.

This trend is the result of the massive infusions of cheap credit
into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of “quantitative
easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even while global
economic growth has slumped.

While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there
is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very
top.

In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their
wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households
owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According
to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both
the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent
compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.

Those families with wealth between $20 and $100 million also rose
substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in their wealth in twelve
short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years they will surpass $14
trillion according to the report.

Coming in last in the “high net worth” population are those with
between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth. These households are
expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each year, going from $49
trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage points below the highest
bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.

The gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp
contrast to the experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth
accumulation has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of
people have not even begun to recover from the past recession.

An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows
that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56
percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014.
Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the
world’s wealth.

In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and
2013, the median household net worth of those in the United States fell from
$87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth
drop during the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between
2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1
percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.

As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) has noted, in the United States “between 2007 and 2013, net wealth fell
on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times more (26 percent) for those at
the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The 2015 report concludes that
“low-income households have not benefited at all from income growth.”

Another report by Knight Frank, looks at those with
wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014 these 172,850
ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective wealth by $700
billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.

The report also draws attention to the disconnection between the
rich and the actual economy. It states that the growth of this ultra-wealthy
population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated global economic growth. During
2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its forecast increase for world output
from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”

OBAMA-CLINTONomics: the
never end war on the American middle-class. But we still get the tax bills for
the looting of their Wall Street cronies and their bailouts and billions for
Mexico’s welfare state in our borders.

While the wealth of the rich
is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the
super wealthy, skewed towards the very top.

In 2014,
those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase 11
percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in
2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This
top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of
households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound
growth on their wealth in the next five years.

In 2014 the Russell Sage
Foundation found that between

2003 and 2013, the median
household net worth of those in

the United States fell from
$87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36

percent. While the rich also saw
their wealth drop during the

recession, they are more than
making that money back.

Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent
of all the income gains in

the US went to the top 1 percent.
This is the most distorted

post-recession income gain on
record.

INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND
HIS WALL STREET CRONIES

collapse
of household income in the US… STILL BILLIONS IN WELFARE HANDED TO ILLEGALS…
they already get our jobs and are voting for more!

“The yearly income of a
typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six
years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013
Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents
a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration
of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”

"During the month,
some 432,000 people in the

US gave up looking for a job." EVEN AS JEB

BUSH, HILLARY CLINTON and
BERNIE

SANDERS PREACH AMNESTY! AMNESTY!

AMNESTY!

"The American phenomenon
of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the
very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the
social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven
down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity
policies, is part of a broader global process."

HILLARY CLINTON'S
BIGGEST DONORS ARE OBAMA'S CRIMINAL CRONY

BANKSTERS!

"A defining expression
of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the
point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s
resources in order to further enrich itself."

Federal
Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy

By Barry Grey
21 July 2015

The
US Federal Reserve Board last week released its semiannual Monetary Policy
Report to Congress, providing an assessment of the state of the American
economy and outlining the central bank’s monetary policy going forward. The
report, along with Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony before both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, as well as a speech by Yellen the previous week
in Cleveland, present a grim picture of the reality behind the official talk of
economic “recovery.”
In her prepared remarks to Congress last Wednesday and Thursday, Yellen said,
“Looking forward, prospects are favorable for further improvement in the US labor
market and the economy more broadly.”

She reiterated her assurances that while the Fed would likely begin to raise
its benchmark federal funds interest rate later this year from the 0.0 to 0.25
percent level it has maintained since shortly after the 2008 financial crash,
it would do so only slowly and gradually, keeping short-term rates well below
historically normal levels for an indefinite period.

This was
an expected, but nevertheless welcome, signal to the American financial elite,
which has enjoyed a spectacular rise in corporate profits, stock values and
personal wealth since 2009 thanks to the flood of virtually free money provided
by the Fed.

"But as Yellen’s remarks and the Fed report indicate, the explosion of
asset values and wealth accumulation at the very top of the economic ladder has
occurred alongside an intractable and continuing slump in the real
economy."

In her
prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate
Banking Committee, Yellen noted the following features of the performance of
the US economy over the first six months of 2015:

* A sharp
decline in the rate of economic growth as compared to 2014, including an actual
contraction in the first quarter of the year.

* A
substantial slackening (19 percent) in average monthly job-creation, from
260,000 last year to 210,000 thus far in 2015.

* Declines
in domestic spending and industrial production.In her
July 10 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Yellen cited an even longer list
of negative indices, including:

* Growth
in real gross domestic product (GDP) since the official beginning of the
recovery in June, 2009 has averaged a mere 2.25 percent per year, a full one
percentage point less than the average rate over the 25 years preceding what
Yellen called the “Great Recession.”* While
manufacturing employment nationwide has increased by about 850,000 since the
end of 2009, there are still almost 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs than
just before the recession.

* Real GDP
and industrial production both declined in the first quarter of this year.
Industrial production continued to fall in April and May.

*
Productivity growth has been “weak,” largely because “Business owners and
managers… have not substantially increased their capital expenditures,” and
“Businesses are holding large amounts of cash on their balance sheets.”

*
Reflecting the general stagnation and even slump in the real economy, core
inflation rose by only 1.2 percent over the past 12 months.

The
Monetary Policy Report issued by the Fed includes facts that are, if anything,
even more alarming, including:

* “Labor
productivity in the business sector is reported to have declined in both the
fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015.”* “Exports
fell markedly in the first quarter, held back by lackluster growth abroad.”

* “Since the
recession began, the gains in… nominal compensation [workers’ wages and
benefits] have fallen well short of their pre-recession averages, and growth of
real compensation has fallen short of productivity growth over much of this
period.”

* “Overall
business investment has turned down as investment in the energy sector has
plunged. Business investment fell at an annual rate of 2 percent in first
quarter… Business outlays for structures outside of the energy sector also
declined in the first quarter…”

The report incorporates the Fed’s projections for US economic growth, published
following the June meeting of the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open
Market Committee. They include a downward revision of the projection for 2015
to 1.8 percent-2.0 percent from the March projection of 2.3 percent to 2.7
percent.

That the US economy continues to stagnate and even contract is indicated by two
surveys released last week while Yellen was testifying before Congress. The Fed
reported that factory production failed to increase in June for the second
straight month and output in the auto sector fell 3.7 percent. The Commerce
Department reported that retail sales unexpectedly fell in June, declining by
0.3 percent.
These statistics follow the employment report for June, which showed that the
share of the US working-age population either employed or actively looking for
work, known as the labor force participation rate, fell to 62.6 percent, its
lowest level in 38 years. During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up
looking for a job.

The disastrous figures on business investment are perhaps the most telling
indicators of the underlying crisis of the capitalist system. The Fed report
attributes the sharp decline so far this year primarily to the dramatic fall in
oil prices and resulting contraction in investment and construction in the
energy sector. But the plunge in oil prices is itself a symptom of a general
slowdown in the world economy.
Moreover, a dramatic decline in productive investment is common to all of the
major industrialized economies of Europe and North America. In its World
Economic Outlook of last April, the International Monetary Fund for the first
time since the 2008 financial crisis acknowledged that there was no prospect
for an early return to pre-recession levels of economic growth, linking this
bleak prognosis to a general and pronounced decline in productive investment.

The American
phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of
wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive
investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living
standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and
government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process.
The economic crisis in the US and internationally is not simply a conjunctural
downturn. It is a systemic crisis of global capitalism, centered in the
US. A
defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation
and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy
plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself.

While the economy is starved of productive investment, entirely parasitic and
socially destructive activities such as stock buybacks, dividend hikes and
mergers and acquisitions return to pre-crash levels and head for new heights.
US corporations have spent more on stock buybacks so far this year than on
factories and equipment.
The intractable nature of this crisis, within the framework of capitalism, is
underscored by the IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook, released earlier this
month, which projects that 2015 will be the worst year for economic growth
since the height of the recession in 2009.